Crowds at L.A. County malls called ‘mini-disaster’

LOS ANGELES — Health inspectors and authorities stepped up enforcement at restaurants and shopping malls over the post-Christmas weekend as they desperately seek to curb a coronavirus surge that already has filled some hospitals in California well beyond normal capacity.

Crowding at Los Angeles County shopping malls came under scrutiny before the holiday. Several of them were cited and fined up to $500 for violating COVID-19 measures, which could include not keeping occupancy below 20 percent capacity, the Los Angeles Times reported Saturday.

“We’re going to take a hard look this weekend at the shopping malls because the pictures we’ve been seeing are … another little mini-disaster,” county public health director Barbara Ferrer said. “The occupancy is supposed to be down to 20 percent. But when you look around, they look way more crowded than 20 percent. And that just means a complete breakdown of what we are requiring.”

Health officials were waiting to see whether people followed their pleas and avoided Christmas and New Year’s festivities that could lead to a new round of infections.

Beverly Hills police halted a plan for a secret New Year’s Eve dinner at La Scala after the Italian restaurant circulated invitations to a “discreet” meal that would violate the county’s ban on indoor dining.

In Sonoma County in California’s wine country, a Native American casino announced it was canceling a planned private New Year’s Eve indoor event that could have drawn as many as 4,000 people. The Graton Resort and Casino is on sovereign native land that isn’t subject to state or county health orders, but it had come under scrutiny for the event.

Coronavirus cases, hospitalizations and deaths have mounted exponentially in recent weeks and are breaking records. On Christmas Eve, California became the first state to exceed 2 million confirmed COVID-19 cases.

The first coronavirus case in California was confirmed Jan. 25. It took 292 days to get to 1 million infections, on Nov. 11. Just 44 days later, the number topped 2 million.